Tuesday, 19 January 2010

The Great Dentist's Chair Hunt

BLTP raises an interesting point on my last post:

"Just been listening to Today and they mentioned "dentist chair" binge drinking, has anyone ever seen one of these? The famous (in 1996) Gazza incident happened abroad didn't it? And yet this is talked about as if it's daily widespread."

I've never seen one. I just did a Google image search and can't find a single picture of one.

If anyone can send me documentary proof of such a promotion happening anywhere in the UK in the last ten years, you get a free copy of my book and a copy of the HSC Report.

When I was 18 I held a house party when my parents were out before I went away on a tour of Europe.

Early in the evening I nipped out to grab some provisions and much to my dismay came back to find my younger brother (then 15) sitting in a chair in the kitchen with my newly 'adult' friends each holding a bottle of spirits upside down in the air and a gaggle of clapping teenagers encircling him as he was covered in a shower of alcohol.

I've never seen it happen anywhere else and definitely never on licensed premises.

(By the way this is completed unrelated to my last comment on your blog re alcohol abuse and is more to do with teenage experimentation than anything else!)

The Government today pledged to ban the ‘Dentist’s Chair’ drinking game as part of a crackdown on Britain’s booze epidemic.

However, concerns have been raised that few people had ever heard of, yet alone seen, a Dentist’s Chair promotion operated or advertised by pubs and clubs.

Responding to this, a senior cabinet source revealed: ‘it all stems from Paul Gascoigne scoring that magic goal against Scotland in Euro 96. Gordon Brown was absolutely outraged.’ The source went on to claim that Brown, already in a foul temper after Seaman had saved Gary McAllistair’s penalty, went ‘absolutely fucking mental’ when England went on the break allowing Gazza to volley in the second goal soon after.

‘I’d never seen Brown act in such a way, he even threw his bottle of Buckie at the screen and attempted to headbutt John Prescott who was trying to calm him down. In the end we had to stun him with a heavy volume of Keynesian economic theory’.

Brown firmly blamed Scotland’s loss to the ‘Dentist’s Chair’ stunt Gazza pulled pre-tournament. ‘He believed drinks promotions gave people superhuman prowess’ confided the source. ‘The only reason he wanted the PM job was to ban this promotion, waiting years for revenge’.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman defended the ban, claiming ‘we know this never happens but at the time Hong Kong, where Gazza perpetrated this atrocity, was a UK colony and therefore this did technically happen on our streets, 14 years ago.’

To what degree do you think that all this stuff is just voter friendly noise.

When I hear about what it being proposed, and armed with the knowledge from your posts - there is lot of stuff about a binge culture that may or may not exists. Compulsory ID - no worse than in supermarkets, the local against central licensing is hardly the end of the world (I'm a local versus centralised kind of chap anyway so maybe that's just me).

So - in some ways there is a lot of smoke and noise - but little substance AND going by your figures they can show that they have "won" just by un-spinning the figures and telling the truth.

Cheap, no effort , won't piss anyone off - almost everyone is a winner....(for which ever party get in)

Beer nut your first link doesn't work for me and the second is written by someone who also reviews a branch of Burtons and a strip club and so obviously been signed up to advise of govt. health policy.! :)

Dentist Chairs exist in clubs in Newcastle, according to some of my coursemates' photos of nights out. On an unrelated note I bumped into Gazza in the Strawberry (directly opposite St James' Park) and he was, shall we say, slightly more than pleasantly pissed.

so one sighting in one bar(chain?)* in Newcastle is worthy of reporting as normal behaviour on the BBC's premier news programme by one of the highest placed medical figures in the land.*I don't see why our research should be any more thorough than his! ;-)

sorry stringer but on the interview I heard it was mentioned as if it was normal and wide spread behaviour unlike, pub quizes, meat raffles, singing, dancing, stand up comedy, dominos, darts, pool, crisp eating, bowls, skittles, morris men, crossword puzzling, arguing, etc all the other things that go in pubs

Apologies, BLTP, I should have linked it properly. Here you go: it's the erstwhile Sam Jacks of Newcastle, and I believe it represents this thread's first proof of such a promotion happening somewhere in the UK in last ten years.

"Just been listening to Today and they mentioned " dentistas chair" binge drinking, has anyone ever seen one of these? The famous (in 1996) Gazza incident happened abroad didn't it? And yet this is talked about as if it's daily widespread." - yup Ive heard of this .even in our country spread about this news.